Home
by jan.lakomiec
Summary: "No matter how far and where to birds may fly, they never lose their way and always find their way back home." Or, Mewtwo isn't sure why he is where he is, but soon finds he doesn't mind.


He only realized how exhausted he had been, when the trajectory of his flight swerved abruptly into a nosedive towards the pavement some thirty stories below. Granted, the persistent, pounding headache should have been a dead giveaway from the very start, but he had been too focused on other things to notice.

The city was slowly recovering, Pokémon and human alike heaving themselves from rubble-coated ground and lending a helping hand to those who couldn't. Squads of firemen, supported by their Squirtles, were putting out small fires in the background. A sick, twisted billionaire, whose sight made his skin crawl, was being wheeled out the front door of his glass fortress, flanked by police officers and their growling Arcanine partners on both sides. Son and father, reunited at last, were locked in a fierce, tearful embrace in the middle of all this madness, with an overjoyed ball of fluffy, yellow fur prancing around their ankles and _pika_-ing up at them in excitement.

All the while Mewtwo was trying very, _very_ hard not to let the roiling nausea get the better of him.

He was, by all accounts, a Legendary Pokémon, one of the most powerful entities in the entire world. But even he, though he would argue vehemently against such a claim, had his limits. Limits that had very clearly been reached, and far surpassed, today. Though he had thought differently at the time, reversing the results of the merging at a mass scale, especially after the kind of mental strain he had been subjected to right before, wasn't quite as easy as he had made it sound. But the R was gone, the population of Ryme City had regained their bodies and souls, the lunatic behind all of it had been apprehended. Surely no one would mind if Mewtwo discreetly took his leave.

Without waiting to find out, he did just that.

His body felt odd, like a glove that had once fit but was now inexplicably too small and too big at once. It made his nausea worsen further; he could feel bile burning the back of his throat. The very thought of what had been done to him… the feeling of being locked away in some distant, dark corner of his consciousness… a prisoner in his own mind, screaming without a sound, in a futile struggle against the violator of his body and mind… It made him quake and shiver violently, in rage and fear alike.

It was _wrong_. So, so _wrong_.

Far beyond anything Giovanni and Team Rocket had ever done to him. Pain, he was used to. Suffering, he knew all too well. Powerlessness, he hated with every fiber of his being. But the complete and utter destruction of his entire being, the theft of his body, the attempted erasure of his psyche, his very soul; that terrified him to a level he had never thought possible before.

Over the years, he had come to terms with what he was, that he belonged in this world like any other living being, and accepted it. Thinking of how close he was to losing it all, all his experiences, memories, lessons he had learned, gone just like that, in an instant… It made his blood run cold.

With great effort, he managed to catch himself before the ground rose up to meet him, angle himself upward and shoot off, streaking through the low-hanging clouds. He didn't know where he was going, not really, unable to force himself to be led by anything other than pure instinct. All he wanted to do was find a dark cave, deep in some unreachable, uncharted mountain range, crawl into it and sleep for a week.

Each beat of his heart sent a fresh way of agony travelling all throughout his body. His head wasn't the only part of him in pain, though it was likely the most severe; the damage Mewtwo had suffered while _he_ was in control, easily pushed aside at first, now returned with a vengeance, and the dull ache of bruised bones and the sting of bleeding cuts, preying on his exhaustion.

As annoying and inconvenient as those were, they were nothing to the raging inferno that threatened to split his skull at any moment. It felt like trying to plug a dam with one's bare hands. His disarrayed thoughts and raging emotions leaked through, like water through the cracks, despite his best efforts to keep them contained, and were projected onto the outside world without any censor. A flock of Pidgeys, that had ventured a little too close to the wounded Legendary, got caught up in the psychic stream and veered off, squawking in pain and fright, and bumping into each other.

Their sight stirred something in the clone's heart, an incongruous feeling of longing. For a moment his aching, shattered mind cleared and Mewtwo wondered briefly, if, had he been a natural-born Pokémon like they, he would now be headed (where _was_ he headed, anyway?) in the direction of his home, his safe haven. Home. A word one could give so many associations. He had none.

Another agonizing pulse shot through his synapses, white flashed before his eyes, and he barely managed to stifle a groan of pain. Once again, he directed all of his remaining mental capacity towards keeping his mind together and let his body alone steer him. Passing out mid-flight would be highly embarrassing, not to mention deadly, as a fall from this altitude would surely kill him.

The further he went, the darker it got, though at first Mewtwo couldn't tell if it was the Sun setting at the day's end, or if the dark spots dancing across the edges of his vision were expanding. It felt like he was bleeding from a million cuts, growing weaker from the blood loss, yet the wounds were mental rather than physical. Despite his best attempts, he couldn't staunch the flow of blood; whenever he tried to mend one of the raw, bleeding wounds, another ten appeared elsewhere.

Mewtwo was breathing heavily, with puffs of steam twirling around his head with every breath and streaming after him: a metaphorical trail of blood. He must've been flying for hours, though he had no idea how long, exactly. Enough time to cover a substantial distance, at his, if slightly dampened, speed. Images occasionally flashed before his eyes, of a rough sea, of wide plains of green and brown, of serpentine roads (or were they rivers?) slithering between small lumps of hills. Yet they were completely alien to him, without any tangible connection between them; he wasn't even sure he had actually seen any of it.

His flight path dipped once again, and he narrowly avoided a full-on collision with a tree, twisting to the right at the last second. The sudden movement didn't sit well with his hurting brain, which it chose to signal to him with another overwhelming explosion of pure agony that made him want to curl up into a tight, little ball and weep.

He grinded his teeth together roughly, resisting that urge with all the tenacity he could still muster, and pushed himself forward again. Something told him that he was close, some strange gut feeling he hadn't been aware of possessing earlier. Mewtwo didn't rely on gut feelings.

And then he crested another hill, soared over the tips of a small clump of birch trees, and the gut feeling told him he had nearly reached his destination.

If he had been able to do so, Mewtwo would have undoubtedly scolded himself thoroughly. He had just fled a city full of humans in search of a safe place to recuperate, and here he was floating above a small, country town. The night had well and truly fallen, the dark sky illuminated only by the large, crescent shape of the moon, and by sparsely spaced lanterns and warmly glowing windows of houses from below.

But the loud and harsh protests of the still rational part of his brain were muffled entirely, as if coming from a great distance away, and Mewtwo edged forward despite the ridiculousness of it all. One house in particular, the one he seemed to be heading towards, had all of its lights turned off. At first glance it was completely unremarkable, indistinguishable from all the other human settlements, yet the Legendary still felt oddly drawn to it, like a moth to flame. It didn't make any sense whatsoever, but Mewtwo was so tired and hurt, he really didn't feel like wondering whether he had been somehow put in a trance and was flying right into a trap of Team Rocket, Clifford, or whatever other megalomaniacal tyrant this world undoubtedly had an overabundance of. If it was his demise he was heading towards, he only prayed it'd be quick.

Instead of trying the front door, like any civilized Pokémon realistically should, he rounded the front porch and found himself staring at, and through, a window that had been left wide open for some inexplicable reason as the night wasn't exactly hot nor stuffy. But before he could spare this strange anomaly another thought, he was tumbling head-over-tail inside with all the grace of a fledgling Spearow, landing on the floor with a loud thud and a pained moan.

It was even darker inside, without any celestial bodies to provide light, but Mewtwo just about managed to make out the faint outlines of shelves lining the adjacent wall, what appeared to be silhouettes of several trophies stood on them, and a bed situated right across the room from him with a sizeable lump beneath the sheets.

Mewtwo was still in the process of reacquainting himself with all his limbs and floating up unsteadily and swaying from side to side as if thrown around by heavy gusts of wind, no easy process in his current state, when the lump shifted. A hand shot out from beneath the covers, slapped the flat top of the nightstand, bumped the alarm clock and sent it crashing down to the floor, which didn't sit well at all with Mewtwo's poor head, to finally hit the on switch of a small, bedside lamp. With a small hiss, Mewtwo narrowed his eyes, momentarily blinded by the small light.

The lump shifted some more, and from beneath the covers rose an all too familiar figure, with an unruly mess of black hair, sleepily rubbing at his eyes. With a mighty yawn the teen stretched out, only to freeze partway through, with his mouth open wide, staring at Mewtwo, who was staring back at him.

For a moment no one moved, silence settling over them like a stifling cloth.

_Apologies_, Mewtwo started after a moment, wincing internally; the simple act of purposefully projecting his mental voice at someone made him feel like Clifford's drones were shocking him all over again. _I should not have intruded. _

It spoke volumes of the quality of Ash Ketchum's character that, instead of inquiring as to what on Arceus' godly behind was Mewtwo doing in his bedroom in the middle of the night, he rushed out of bed, appearing to be completely awake, and began rummaging through his nightstand's drawers.

For a dark, terrible second, Mewtwo was half expecting to have a Pokéball thrown his way, but when Ash turned back to him, in his hands he had only a few spray bottles of those potions trainers used to heal their injured Pokémon. Mewtwo wondered briefly if they would even work on him, perhaps his genetic composition prevented him from being healed by standard means.

"They should," Ash answered, startling Mewtwo, and his brow furrowed. "Didn't you just ask about if they'd work?"

Dread seeped into the pit of Mewtwo's stomach, and formed a burning, acidic pool there. He couldn't even control his thoughts anymore, his mind unable to keep them segregated and locked away in the safety of his mind. He had lost the only stronghold he had left. Throughout the experimentation, when his body had been violated and siphoned for the R compound, and even earlier still, during his time as Giovanni's instrument of destruction, he had always had that one, last thing that could never be tainted, could never be shackled. Until Howard Clifford.

Either he had projected all of that onto Ash, or there was something particularly pitiful about the way his tail drooped, shoulders hunched and head hung tiredly, because the expression on the teen's face morphed into something softer. Mewtwo imagined that must have been what compassion looked like.

"It's okay," Ash spoke softly, and Mewtwo looked down at him, ears twitching slightly. "Nothing can harm you here. It's okay."

He would have used that same tone to calm down a frightened Growlithe, Mewtwo thought. It really should have made him feel insulted; a being as strong as him didn't need compassion, didn't require charity. But he felt hollow and so, so tired, and he welcomed those words of comfort like he had never thought he would.

"Come on," he extended a hand towards Mewtwo, a gesture so unfamiliar to the clone that he had to take a moment to decipher its meaning. "You should sit."

Some part of him revolted at the very thought of willingly touching a human. Touch meant pain. Touch meant hundreds of tiny, pinprick needles piercing his skin, stabbing into his veins, pumping him dry of his life-blood. But this was Ash. These hands had never harmed him.

Gingerly, he took the offered hand, and Ash's fingers wrapped gently around his own. Mewtwo allowed himself to be shepherded towards the bed, sparing a passing thought to how ridiculous this would have looked to any potential onlookers: a teenager dragging around a life-sized Pokémon balloon.

"Pika!"

…He should not have been quite this startled by the cheerful greeting. Where there was smoke, there was always fire, and where there was Ash, Pikachu was sure to show up.

_And hello to you too_, he responded, feeling like he should still strive to be civil despite his current predicament, though his voice was less the lofty, self-assured and confident murmur of a gathering storm it usually was, and more a pained, deflated sigh of someone who had been through too much.

His knees bumped against the bed's edges and he, carefully, turned around to deposit himself on mattress. Unfortunately his descent wasn't quite as graceful as he had hoped, as he all but plopped down onto the springy rectangle, bracing himself against the blessedly soft material with his free hand as not to pitch forward and fall off right away. His long, sinewy tail curled around him and deposited itself on his lap.

A small, treacherous pang of sadness resonated in his heart when Ash pulled his hand away, grabbing one of the potion sprays instead.

_Will you not ruin your bed sheets with that?_

Ash scoffed.

"Don't be ridiculous."

The misty substance felt cool and refreshing against his bruised, chapped skin and Mewtwo couldn't stop himself from heaving a soft sigh of relief, his eyes sliding shut of their own accord. At the very least one of his ailments was passing. The monstrous headache persisted, a hurt incurable by mere man-made medications.

Ash worked in silence, granting the Legendary his space and allowing Mewtwo's thoughts to wonder freely for the first time in quite a while. A rather dangerous freedom to be granted, as they immediately turned to the events of the last two weeks, as if Mewtwo's brain was hell bent on torturing him further.

Suddenly he was back in the round containment unit, hooked up to multiple tubes - some to draw his blood, some to pump his veins full of a psychic suppressant - held in place by mechanical clamps that crushed his wrists, nose burning from the scent of disinfectants and his own blood. The man in the wheelchair was smiling at him from beyond the glass, his long, sunken face lit up with ill-advised elation.

"This is your destiny, abomination," Howard Clifford had told him. "Be glad you can repay the kindness of those who have brought you into this world. Thanks to your blood, humanity will be able to achieve the next step in its evolution."

The ramblings of a mad man with a sick mind. How had no one managed to see Howard's true goal until it was too late?

The scene shifted, morphed into the inside of a lavishly decorated penthouse, from where Clifford could marvel at the empire of his own making. Mewtwo was still in the capsule, this time with an alien presence clamped like a vice around his head. Opposite of him, behind a massive desk, sat Howard, a triumphant smirk etched into his elderly features. Atop his head was mounted a device identical to the one Mewtwo had been outfitted with; like something straight out of the darkest nightmares.

The door to the room slammed open and the human from before, Tim?, came barging in, only to freeze, rooted in place and staring at Mewtwo fearfully.

_Run!_ Mewtwo shouted, truly terrified for perhaps the first time in his life, before the purple haze enveloped him, obscuring the room, the two figures, the whole world from view.

And then his mind imploded.

The experience was impossible to describe, unlike anything he had ever gone through. He was screaming, choking, drowning, burning, freezing. The darkness clung to him like a suffocating miasma, viciously tearing into his mouth and nose, gauging out his eyes and tearing out his tongue. His skin cracked, withered away like dust carried by the wind, revealing the pearly white of bone beneath, which also collapsed into ashes, fading away. Like he had never even existed.

He was dying, Mewtwo realized with stark clarity, fading away into nothingness. Dead, erased, forgotten.

_I don't want to go, I don't want to disappear, I don't want to be forgotten!_

He fought back with every fiber of his being, of whatever he still had left, clawing and grasping at the invading force that swept through his mind like a tidal wave, violently tearing away his memories, his thoughts, his very sense of self.

It was pain that brought him back to the present. Another blinding flash and a yelp of pain that Mewtwo belatedly realized had been his own, and he was back in Ash's bedroom, doubled over and panting heavily. He pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes, feverishly trying to rub away the stinging feeling of a white hot rod being shoved through his mind. Incessant buzzing filled his ears, like the static from a broken TV, pulsing in sync with the frantic beating of his heart.

Even through his tightly closed eyelids, Mewtwo still saw the telltale flash of a Pokémon materializing out of a Pokéball. Though he couldn't make out the words, he still heard the low murmur of Ash's voice and a soft "Car" he received in response. The door open and closed quietly.

"Mewtwo," this he heard quite clearly, and he slowly pulled his hands away, realizing, shocked, that they were damp with tears he wasn't aware he'd been shedding. Ash was standing a little to his side, not too close but just in reach, with a worried frown on his face. "Listen, I know you despise physical contact, especially when it's from humans, but… would you like a hug?"

A hug.

Thrown for a loop, Mewtwo drew his brows together in confusion, pain and sorrow momentarily forgotten. He didn't think he had ever heard of hugs, certainly never received one. As he mulled the question over, his mind dredged up one of the last few sights he had seen in Ryme City before coming here: the emotions between Tim and Harry had been palpable in that moment. Perhaps that was what a hug was? The act of wrapping one's arms around one's kin. But if that was the case, why would Ash offer it to him, he wasn't a member of the human's family. It didn't feel appropriate for Mewtwo.

Now Ash looked dangerously close to tearing up, and Mewtwo felt personally responsible. If only his mind didn't feel like it was literally falling apart, then he could at the very least put more effort into censoring the outpour of thoughts.

"A hug is…" he paused, swallowed thickly. "It's meant to be reassuring. And comforting. Like a physical reminder that the person being hugged is loved and cared for."

It wasn't perhaps the best definition, but it was the way he stared at Mewtwo after he had finished that really gave the Legendary pause and made him think about what had just been said. Loved and cared for, but that didn't make any sense at all… oh.

_Oh._

He felt something warm churn in his stomach, not unpleasant like before, rather… nice instead. He met Ash's gaze, who had been patiently waiting for Mewtwo to work through it on his own, subconsciously toying with the tip of his tail that had been lying in his lap.

_Yes, I believe… I would quite like one._

It was a boon he didn't have to communicate verbally. Projected thoughts didn't have a habit of coming out shaky and cracking halfway through.

Ash moved forward immediately, though kept his movements slow and deliberate, as if making sure Mewtwo saw everything he was doing. This amount of care for his broken psyche was so staggeringly unexpected it made his head spin a little.

And then he felt Ash's arms wrapping carefully around his middle and all else was swiftly forgotten. The teen maneuvered himself against Mewtwo's torso, at the same time making sure not to press the Legendary's arms against his sides, a small detail Mewtwo was rather grateful for, and simply held him. Not too tightly, but also not too lightly too feel. It was quite a good hug in Mewtwo's opinion.

It was warm and comfortable and… pleasant. Yes, pleasant was a good way to describe it. And even if Mewtwo sagged a little in Ash's embrace so that his muzzle was nuzzled into the place where the teen's neck joined with his shoulder, no one had to know. After a moment of awkwardly keeping his arms by his sides, Mewtwo tried to move them to better accommodate the newfound position. One he looped across Ash's shoulders and the other settled against the small of the teen's back.

"I'm sorry," Ash spoke so suddenly, he even managed to surprise himself.

Having been lulled into a pleasant state of weightlessness, Mewtwo took a moment to process what exactly had been said. His brows drew together in confusion.

_There is no need to apologize, you are doing quite well._

"No, I don't mean that," the young trainer muttered against Mewtwo's neck. "I'm so sorry about what happened to you, just… about all of it."

Mewtwo was still at a loss.

None of that had been your fault.

"I know, I know. I just _hate_ when bad things happen to my friends."

_Friend…_

This time it didn't take Mewtwo long to grasp the implication, and he shuddered a little bit. By Arceus, was he getting choked up? The sudden tightness in his throat and the odd wetness in the corners of his eyes certainly made that a very distinct possibility. Some part of him felt mortally embarrassed by the whole thing, but Ash had already seen him half dead, this was hardly worse.

It was only that… no one had ever referred to him as a friend before.

"I know," Ash repeated, his voice barely more than a whisper. A steady hand began to rub up and down Mewtwo's back in slow, even strokes, that made him arch his spine a tad bit and let out something that dangerously resembled the beginnings of a full-on purr. "I'm sorry about that too."

They remained like this for a few seconds more, until they heard the door to the room open with a small creak. A Lucario slipped inside soundlessly, carrying a large bowl of water with several towels dipped in it and a glass submerged in it. Mewtwo hadn't been aware just how parched he was until now.

With some reluctance the Pokémon and the trainer pulled out of their hug; Ash took the bowl from the Lucario with a grateful "thank you" and set it down, filling the glass to the brim with crystal clear water and handing it to Mewtwo. Not trusting his psychic powers just yet, Mewtwo instead took it with slightly shaky hands and polished it off in three quick gulps. The feeling of pleasantly cool water flowing down his sore throat was like heaven.

Meanwhile, Lucario moved away to stand by the wall with Pikachu, the two Pokémon giving the pair the space they needed. Though the Aura Pokémon occasionally shot worried glances Mewtwo's way, the dreads? feelers? antennas? that grew out of the back of his head twitching from time to time.

"Oh, don't worry, Lucario can just sense the distress you're in. It makes him anxious because he can't help you," Ash explained quickly, giving Mewtwo an odd sense of vertigo as to who exactly was the psychic type in this room.

He looked over at the jackal, who simply shrugged acquiescingly.

_Thank you._

"Cario."

Just then Ash turned around, having finished wringing the towels out, and motioned towards Mewtwo with his chin while his hands were busy.

"Right, now get in bed."

Mewtwo blinked.

_Pardon?_

Ash sighed and rolled his eyes, like he was dealing with a particularly stubborn toddler.

"I said: 'lie down'."

Now, Mewtwo wasn't what one would commonly refer to as thick, he'd rather see himself as the polar opposite. So he wasn't entirely sure which part of Ash's command he didn't understand. He blamed the headache and weariness.

_This is your bed_, was his best attempt at an argument but it failed to impress Ash.

"Yes, and I'm telling you to get in it. Mewtwo, please, you look like you're about to pass out sitting down," the teen's perfect rendition of the 'puppy eyes' look was disturbingly spot on and Mewtwo found himself at a loss of words. He blamed exhaustion.

_I assure you, I am quite fine and, I believe, still wholly capable of deciding whether I require rest or not._

It was a good little speech, however somewhat undermined by the massive yawn Mewtwo had broken out into midway through. He swayed dangerously, blinking his suddenly bleary eyes.

"Yes, clearly," Ash smiled, stepping forward and placing a gentle hand on Mewtwo's shoulder. "Let's tuck you in."

Mewtwo made no further protests, especially when his back hit the criminally soft mattress, and he couldn't help but writhe against with a pleased half-purr. Somehow the thought of Ash watching his frolicking, more fitting of a young Meowth, didn't bother him anymore. Being almost two feet taller than Ash, the sheets didn't quite cover him completely, but when he curled up like usually did for sleep, it fit mostly fine. The bed was still faintly warm from Ash having slept in it previously and Mewtwo felt his strained, tightly coiled muscles beginning to finally unwind. He nuzzled deeper into the pillow, yawned again and sighed, pleased.

"Comfortable?"Ash's head popped into view from above the bed's edge.

_Yes, very_, Mewtwo was too tired to make an attempt at more eloquent phrasing, though managed to crack open one eyelid and look at the teen in an attempt to convey that he was apologetic. _I apologize for the trouble, Ash. It wasn't right of me to impose so crudely on you in your own home._

Something cool and damp was carefully laid atop his temple, coaxing another drawn out sigh from him, this one of relief. The cool towel against his pounding headache felt like Arceus himself had stepped down from the Hall of Origin to lay a healing hoof upon his head.

"My home is your home, Mewtwo. I just wish I'd told you this sooner."

Mewtwo found himself struck with a sudden case of heavy blinking; perhaps a bug had flown in through the open window and bodily assaulted his eye for whatever reason.

_Ash?_

He somewhat hated how small his voice sounded; telepathic messages weren't entirely impervious to emotions.

"Yes?"

_Could you… stay?_

"I'm not going anywhere."


End file.
